Bar council election deferred over faulty voter list

The election to Bangladesh Bar Council, the highest body for regulating the country's lawyers, has been deferred for a week due to anomalies in the voter list.

Now the election will be held on May 27 instead of May 20.

Members of the council decided to defer the election last night at a meeting, which was presided over by Attorney General Mahbubey Alam, who is also a former officio chairman of the council.

At the meeting, five pro-ruling party lawyers demanded deferment of the election saying that members have been registered multiple times in its voter list, SCBA Secretary Mahbub Uddin Khokon told The Daily Star.

 “We do not want multiples names of voters registered with the Bar Council election. Bar council authorities are trying to correct the voter list. We have found that around 1000 lawyers’ names have been registered as voters for multiple times,’ Khokon said.

Meanwhile, 623 lawyers have informed the council that their names have been registered multiple times and they appealed to the council to include their names for single time, he added.

Names of 48,465 lawyers have been registered for casting their votes in the election, Bar Council Assistant Director Nazul Ahsan told The Daily Star.